Every breath you take.

The first coming of chaos. Twelve thousand years ago, members of a more advanced race crossed into our dimension when the barriers temporarily collapsed. Trapped in our world, the aliens, who were also shifters, built structures that eventually caused the great flood and the sinking of Atlantis. Some of the alien DNA survived in progeny that had sailed to other lands carrying an untraceable shifter gene, dormant until awakened by mating with a full-blooded werewolf.

Reese Braga is about to confront the man who’s been stalking her. But she’s the one who’s going to be surprised.

For five years, Glendennon Catch had knocked around the globe as a floater, filling in wherever a team of vampire hunters was down a member. He’d buried six good knights and watched the life take its toll on countless others. He’d drunk his share of whiskey and bedded so many women he would hate to hear the count, but he’d never gotten over his first love. And, if he had a chance for a do-over, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have chosen Rosie Storm over The Order.

Elora Rose Storm had spent five years nursing a heavy heart, while on a cross-dimensional mission to make the world a better place, especially wherever she found human/animal hybrids being mistreated. She’d seen horrors, righted wrongs where she could, and matured into a powerful witch/demon with altruistic leanings.

After all that time, unbeknownst to each other, both were headed home. To Jefferson Unit.

My photographer, Invicta’s Art Photography, took my model of choice for this project, Colin Lenn, into the Las Vegas desert to get this shot for the Carnal cover and I love it.

The first book in the EXILED series is tied to Black Swan with Rosie, aka Elora Rose Storm.

The angel, Kellareal, stopped the genocide of generations of hybrids, who had been bred for research and spent their entire lives imprisoned. Against orders, he spirited them away to a place where they would have freedom and purpose.

In a vindictive fit, Rosie Storm asked her mother’s friend, Kellareal, for a place to hide from her boyfriend and teach him a lesson. Kellareal knew just the place for Rosie to grow up and learn temper control among other things. The land of Exiled.

How do you mend a broken heart? – Kellareal

Elora Rose Storm, otherwise known as Rosie, left her dimension in a fit of immaturity over not getting her way. Some might say the behavior was easier to forgive in light of the fact that she was, chronologically, only fourteen-months-old. Her witch / demon genes had accelerated her physical and intellectual growth, but her emotional equilibrium lagged behind.

The Exiled were a race of human hybrids, who, for generations, had lived their entire lives as slave test subjects. When they became perceived as too dangerous to keep, their creators planned a genocide. Against Council orders, Kellareal intervened and moved them to a dimension where they would have the opportunity to establish balance between the human population and a race of stronger, faster, fiercer hybrids who preyed on them.

Rosie thought she was getting a few weeks of asylum. The last thing she was expecting was to meet someone like Carnal.

This novella will first release as part of the Romancing the Paranormal anthology.

In the middle of a war with dragon shifters, a human widow of a werewolf may get another chance at love, but feelings of guilt threaten a blossoming attraction to the one wolf everyone thought was untamable.

FIRST CHAPTER:

“They’re here!”

Lessie smiled at the excitement in Elise’s voice. She turned her face toward where Elise was pointing while jumping up and down.

She laughed at her friend, “Have a little dignity.”

“Pffft,” said Elise. “Who needs dignity? I need a man. Or maybe a werewolf man,” she pretended to swoon.

The day was bright, filled with the musical sounds of wind chimes ringing in the breeze, like fanfare announcing the arrival of the young wolves looking for brides. Lessie tried but failed to calm the surge of nerves. Elise was the catalyst that pushed her control over the edge. Her emotions had broken free and were not taking either advice or direction, as was clear by the goose bumps that had risen all over her body. Even the air felt like it was filled with magic.

Their society had been burdened with a generation of young women of marriageable age, and no male counterparts to marry. Likewise, so they’d been told, there was a world with a population of young eligible werewolf males without females to wed and, supposedly, they were even more eager to meet. The Conscriptor had stressed the word “eager” in a way that made some of the girls giggle and exchange bright-eyed looks of delight. Others were more outwardly reserved, even if they were just as titillated by the suggestive inference.

As recently as a fortnight before, the young ladies had never heard of werewolves. The description of their species was a little horrifying at first, but desperation overrode choosiness and they decided they were willing to take a look. By the time the day of arrival came, all reservations had melted into a breathless anticipation.

Lessie had worn a yellow dress that complimented her auburn hair and light brown eyes. Set against the bright sunshine of the morning, the color almost made her appear to glow, as if she was walking surrounded by a halo.

The wolves were arriving on the docks by an ocean that was sparkling with reflected sunlight. The means of their arrival was nothing less than dazzling to humans who were accustomed to ordinary, mundane lives.

From the hillside Lessie and her friends could see the prospective husbands come into view one at a time, as if they were walking out of nothingness and taking form as they emerged. It seemed to the girls that it was a god-like thing to do, appearing out of nowhere. That, of course, added to their mystique and made the occasion even more thrilling. The prospects were arriving quickly enough to become a group and be scoping out their surroundings by the time the bachelorettes reached the dock en masse.

The werewolves had been told they would have their work cut out for them if they wanted to convince a human female to commit to mate and leave her home forever. With that in mind, they had studied what behaviors women find attractive in men, along with actual classes in the arts of love taught by a sex demon who was a friend of their alpha. They had come to the land of brides prepared for pursuit of a mate to be the challenge of their lives. So the last thing they expected was to be, more or less, besieged by a crowd of beauties in bright colored dresses and brigher smiles that conveyed receptiveness to social advances.

Lessie’s friends had rushed into the crowd of wolves with an enthusiasm that she found embarrassing. She’d hung back at the edge of the throng, feeling and, perhaps, looking uncertain.

While she was trying to decide whether she would continue to observe or join the mixer, the air dazzled a few feet away and she was face to face with a male who simply and literally took her breath away. He was a little taller than she, with golden skin and long mahogany-colored hair worn loose down his back. But the single feature that caught her attention so that she couldn’t have looked away, not even if she was on fire, was his eyes. His irises were a gray so pale they made him seem even more alien than she’d been expecting. But the otherworldly look of his eyes was softened and warmed when the edges of his mouth turned up into a wolf smile.

As it happened, he seemed to be just as captivated by her and never took his eyes away. Relations with the opposite sex is both easy and natural for werewolves as they are sexual creatures with an innate charismatic appeal, particularly where humans are concerned. One look at the face of the prey who had wandered into his path told the wolf that his pursuit would be both fruitful.

“What’s your name?” asked the wolf.

“Lestriv,” said the girl.

“Lestriv.” He repeated her name slowly as if he was tasting it and rolling it around on his tongue. “That’s hard to say.” His conclusion was offered with a teasing smile that made his eyes light from within.

She resisted the impulse to reach out and trace the strong pronounced line of his jaw with her fingertips, but just barely. Instead she returned his smile, feeling shy about her inexperience with the opposite sex and, at the same time, emboldened by his obvious interest.

“I guess that’s why most people call me Lessie.”

He tried out “Lessie” the same way and, looking satisfied, said, “Much better.”

The werewolf took a step toward her. She took a step back reflexively, not because she wanted to retreat from him. She didn’t. It was simply an involuntary response.

She couldn’t have known it, but it was the best thing she could have done if she wanted to snag a wolf because that small response awakened his predatory instincts and made her an object of even greater fascination.

“Don’t be afraid,” said the wolf.

“I’m… not,” Lessie stumbled.

“I’ll not harm you. In fact,” his mouth curled in a way that made her knees weak, “I’ll show you more pleasure than you’ve ever imagined. If you’ll let me.”

At that he reached out at arm’s length and ran a warm finger down her cheek. She couldn’t suppress a shiver. He couldn’t stop his smile from widening when he saw it.

Inside she may have been contemplating the many ways she would like to explore his claim of commanding pleasure, but what her mouth said was, “What’s your name?”

He raised his chin and offered a charming little lopsided grin. “Jimmy Clear-Eyes.”

Lessie cocked her head to the side. “That suits you fine, werewolf.”

Again he took a step toward the woman and reached for her hand, but that time she did not back away.

“You suit me fine, human.”

The sound of wind chimes blown by sweet sunny breezes stopped abruptly as Lessie started to feel the corporeal weight of her body waking. She heard a woman’s voice repeat, “They’re here,” but it wasn’t Elise announcing the arrival of young brash handsome werewolves looking for love. It was the alpha’s mate, Luna, come to help get her ready for the worst day of her life, Jimmy’s funeral.

Inside her mind chanted, “No,” over and over again, like she could use the word as a shield against reentering the nightmare of her reality But she couldn’t hold wakefulness at bay forever. New tears sprang into eyes badly swollen from crying for two days.

As she turned in the bed, her hand automatically went to her belly, which was just beginning to tell the world that their second child was seeded and growing. She hoped that the baby, he or she, couldn’t feel the pain in her heart.

September 18th

This is my first box set and I’m so excited. We decided to do Highland Shifters in association with the release of Outlander. Like Outlander, my contribution – Liulf – is similar to a time travel piece that transports an entire pack to a pre-technology age. (You can read a preview excerpt at http://victoriadanann.me/2014/08/29/3438/).

One of the big things that distinguishes this box set from others is the fact that the stories are ALL NEW!

Here’s a PREVIEW excerpt from one of the ALL NEW stories included in the Scottish Shifter Box Set, to release September 18th.

From Liulf, New Scotia Pack 1, Mahdrah Ahlee by Victoria Danann

Liulf squatted on the castle parapet with his back to the sound of the ocean crashing against Girnigoe’s black craig cliffs. If he let himself think about the damp cold or the January wind that tried to penetrate flesh and bone, he’d start to shiver in a way that would rack his whole body…. So he’d learned to focus on other things. Looking east, over the land he loved, he felt a sense of pride and history. And memory. In his slightly less than four hundred years, he’d covered every inch of pack territory in wolf form and much of it in biped form as well. He knew he was blessed with good things, but that didn’t fill the underlying emptiness that he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Lack of purpose maybe. There wasn’t much satisfaction in guarding a border without an aggressor.

That very day a wolf had said it was easy for Liulf to make reckless choices because he didn’t have a mate. Liulf had kept his face passive, but inside the words had stung. It wasn’t as if he could control destiny. What Lycan didn’t want to find his mate? Well, perhaps Conn would prefer to be a bachelor wolf forever.

It was true that Liulf could have settled for a bitch who was merely compatible, as most did. But he hadn’t because he knew there was more. There was mating that was, well, magical. He wouldn’t say so out loud because his brothers would never stop razzing him if he did. But he lived with a constant yearning that never subsided, spoken or not.

All the fucking in the world wouldn’t take the edge off his desire. And he should know. All he had to do was keep from cursing the Fates until they saw fit to gift him with the one. The one he knew was out there.